Mystery Fest: Rumble in the Bronx

1995 martial arts shenanigans

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Radioactivity causes an average-sized Chinese man, slightly smaller than an average-sized man, to grow to an immense size. He then crashes through New York City, toppling buildings and eating cars and scaring children. At least that's what it looks like on the poster.

I gave this movie 7 bonus points for ridiculous dubbing. I can figure out why some of the dialogue's dubbed. The actors or actresses probably don't speak English. But why are some of the gang members dubbed? Or Danny, the neighbor kid in a wheelchair? Seems like I remember another neighbor from another movie with a name almost like Danny. Denny, maybe? At first, I couldn't tell if he was being dubbed or if his acting was just really bad. He's Morgan Lam who only has one more film credit as a "boy in the lobby." Here, you get to hear him (or somebody in a sound studio) say, "I wish my legs were like other kids," a line that probably shouldn't have made me laugh. "Somebody stole my cushion!" probably isn't all that funny out of its context either. I also probably shouldn't have laughed during a scene where Danny was thrown around a couple times and said, "No, that's my new cushion!" He was really proud of that cushion. It's amazing to me that Asians thought American street gangs were like this in the mid-90s. It's like they just watched The Warriors a few times and said, "Ok, I got this. Go find some headbands and a dune buggy!" and then started filming. I was in New York City recently and didn't see one damn dune buggy. Of course, I probably steered clear of the bad parts of town. You know, the parts where people ride dune buggies. These guys are bad news though. They're all heavily armed--with baseball bats--and are willing to push a truck full of those rubber inflatable balls off the roof of a parking garage in order to kill a guy. And they're not afraid to throw around a handicapped child. They certainly have interesting ways of attempted murder including a method where they use baseball bats to hit bottles at their victim. And the way they wrapped up their bats so that the bottles didn't break made it look like this was something they'd done before. Can you imagine hearing a news reporter talking about that? "And in the Bronx, a man was found injured after a bunch of people used baseball bats to hit bottles at him as he stood helplessly against a wall. This is the third victim of bottle-hit-by-baseball violence this month in the city." There's another great scene with the gang where Tony, the leader, drops his gun to fight Chan and they all start chanting, "To-ny! To-ny! To-ny!" What? Come on. My favorite gang guy was Angelo, played over-the-toply by Garvin Cross. Oh, and why is their lair filled with a bunch of used appliances? Oh, nevermind, I actually know the answer to that. It's so those appliances can be used as props in an exhilarating fight scene when Chan shows up. And that's the reason why this movie, despite how much I just poked fun up there, is worth watching--bitching fight scenes and Jackie Chan stunts. It's not the plot. That starts simply and then gets more and more ludicrous as diamonds and wheelchair cushions get involved. Jackie Chan's the man, and here he is at the height of his powers doing things that nobody else making as much money as he does would ever do--making impossible leaps from buildings, getting run over by hovercrafts, diving into sunroofs to avoid being racked by a motorcycle, hanging out with Danny. Even watching the guy use a ladder is amazing. He also shows off some feats of strength as he works out in this one-piece thing that shows Jackie Chan Camel Toe. Hey, there's a good name for a band! Jackie Chan Camel Toe! Great stunts with great fight scenes, the latter showing off Chan's ability to use the setting and its props as well as anybody ever has. Like other Jackie Chan movies, there are outtakes during the credits that show some of the real dangers of these stunts. Of course, when a hovercraft is involved, anything can happen. Everybody knows that! One of my favorite scenes in this or any movie involves that hovercraft. A woman screams "My baby!" as the vehicle approaches her child, and Chan jumps in, tosses a dummy into the arms of the woman, and then gets run over by the thing. It's beautiful, and it's really too bad that the band playing to an audience that for some reason contains Furries during all that chaos continued playing, for whatever reason, and missed it. Oh, wait a second. I forgot about a scene that tops that. There's a scene where Danny tosses Chan a football helmet to use to hit a guy and then tosses him a giant plumber's wrench. Oh, my God. Or maybe it's the ending that is the greatest scene ever. I can't tell you exactly what happens because it would spoil it, but suffice it to say, it involves Chan hitting bad guys with the hovercraft and causing them to fly ridiculous distances and then finally running the main bad guy over and tearing the ass out of his pants.

Sidebar! There's a person named Rainbow Ching who has a part in this movie!

I'd like to go to the club they go to in this movie, by the way. I mean, who wouldn't want to see a cage with a tiger and another cage with a woman in it? And stained glass windows. That's hot, right?

Ok, if you like Jackie Chan, you'll really enjoy this movie. If that kind of thing ain't your bag, you're going to think this is terrible. That's all you need to know.